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Unconventional resources have changed the exploration and production business and are changing our profession. It’s a change for the better, where today geoscientists and engineers work closely to identify prospective areas, drill them and optimize recovery of hydrocarbons from the reservoir.

Focusing on rocks, learning from others and implementing new technologies were the keys to success identified during a talk on “Evolution of Unconventional Oil Plays from Early Innovations to Future
Challenges,” at the DPA luncheon held during the recent AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition in Denver.

There’s little that’s conventional about this year’s UnconventionalResources Technology Conference
URTeC), slated this year for a newlocation and boasting a technical program that is cutting edge in content and expertise. URTeC 2015 will be held July 20-22 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.

Unconventional plays in the Permian Basin are nothing new to the shale scene, as the basin has been horizontally drilled and hydraulically fractured for years. Still, a new approach for evaluating sweet spots, particularly in the Avalon Shale of the play’s Delaware Basin, is slowly changing the way unconventional resources are explored – and perhaps one day, developed.

With the recent surge in new techniques and technology, as well as new plays put into production, a tremendous opportunity exists in both U.S. and international reservoirs to apply lessons learned to existing reservoirs in order to economically increase production and recoverable reserves.

The June 8 deadline is fast approaching for early registration and a $100 savings for the third annual Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC), which will be held July 20-22 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.

Are current conditions in oil and gas creating a big opportunity for petroleum geologists in the Rocky Mountain region? Some experts say today’s drilling slowdown gives geologists time to catch up on recent advances in science, providing a less hectic opportunity to analyze data, study reservoirs and create improved models.

On the heels of an April 23 article in The New York Times headlined, “A New ‘OPEC’ Emerges: The U.S.,” this year’s Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) will take that topic into the field, tracking the country’s shale boom from its inception to turning the United States into the world’s No. 1 petroleum and natural gas producer in 2014 – overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia.

This year's AAPG Woodford Shale Forum focused on new information and optimization. Included were presenters from the University of Oklahoma, Halliburton, Black Swan Energy Services, and Devon Energy just to name a few.

The technical program is in place for the third annual Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC), which will be held July 20-22 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, and there’s still time to save $100 by registering before June 8.

All shale plays are different, and all shale plays shed light on other shale plays. Join experts to discuss world shale plays and share the “lessons learned” in dealing with a wide variety of lithologies, reservoir conditions, and degrees of heterogeneity.

This course is an introduction to the Bakken/Three Forks resource play. The play has proven to be economic and successful for many operators. A wide range of topics will be covered to familiarize the participant with the important nuances of the Bakken and Three Forks.

This course will address integration of source rock, produced oil and gas, and mud gas data to better understand and exploit 3-dimensional details of petroleum systems. Carbon isotope and oil biomarker geochemistry will be stressed as a way to determine quantity and type of generated hydrocarbons and migration distance and direction within source rock and tight oil plays.

This three-day field trip will examine examples of tight-oil reservoirs (Cretaceous Niobrara Formation, Codell member of Carlile Formation from the Denver and North Park basins), tight-gas reservoirs (Cretaceous J Sandstone, Codell and Williams Fork Sandstone, from both the Denver and Piceance basins), CBM reservoirs (Cretaceous Cameo Coals from the Piceance Basin) and potential oil shale resources (Green River Formation of the Piceance Basin).

The attendee will gain a working knowledge concerning how faults and fractures develop and their terminology, methodologies utilized in collecting and analyzing fracture data, characteristics of faults and fractures that affect the sedimentary units (including black shales) in the northern Appalachian Basin of New York state, and tectonics that led to the formation of the structures in the northern Appalachian Basin and the adjacent Appalachian Orogen.

The seminar will utilize traverses to examine multiple thrust sheets exposed in Sun River Canyon, the famous Teton Anticline, and an outstanding example of an exposed fractured reservoir along a fault‐propagated fold in Mississippian carbonates as Swift Reservoir. Participants will examine the mechanics of fracturing, folding, and faulting in thrust belt terrains, identify and discuss new ideas regarding the geometry and kinematics of the development of thrust belts, compare seismic interpretation with outcrop examples, and analyze stratigraphic concepts which are essential in the exploration of thrust belt targets.

This course is oriented towards the recognition and characterization of uncertainty in unconventional reservoirs. Starting with resource/reservoir assessment methods, it moves through the full unconventional value-chain. This two-day exercise and example filled workshop provides participants with the techniques and reasoning needed to validly assess the merits of the search for, and development of, unconventional resource plays.

Geomechanics – in both completions and drilling operations – has become a critical technology in the development of Unconventional Plays. This course presents the basics of oil field geomechanics and its application to unconventional developments; specifically, the role of stress, pore pressure, mechanical properties, and natural fractures on hydraulic fracturing operations.

The course is a practical and applied introduction to geochemical techniques routinely employed in shale-gas condensate and tight-oil reservoir assessment with an emphasis on tools and techniques. Participants should have a solid background in petroleum geology.

This course is a non-numerical introduction to the use of geochemistry and BPSM to better understanding unconventional resources. This course is designed to provide participants with new information on unconventional and sweet spot identification that is not normally available in routine service company courses.

Participants will learn a specific and comprehensive methodology for finding and developing conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources associated with lake deposits. The seminar will start with the Quaternary Bonneville basin in Utah, to build familiarity with lacustrine depositional processes. Participants then examine world-famous exposures of organic-rich mudstone, fluvial sandstone, and carbonate microbialite facies in Wyoming.

Cross disciplinary workflows play an important part of successful characterization of shale reservoirs. This course discusses how the artificial kerogen maturity of organic-rich Green River shale affects the petrophysical, micro-structural, geochemical and elastic properties.

This course is ideal for individuals involved in Midland Basin exploration and development. Successful development of Wolfcamp shale oil relies on complex inter-relationships (ultimately interdependencies) within and between a wide variety of scientific disciplines, financial entities, and company partnerships.

There are more approximately 1,000 oil and gas fields in the world that have been classified as "giant," containing more than 500 million barrels of recoverable oil and /or 3 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Recognition and Correlation of the Eagle Ford, Austin Formations in South Texas can be enhanced with High Resolution Biostratigraphy, fossil abundance peaks and Maximum Flooding Surfaces correlated to Upper Cretaceous sequence stratigraphic cycle chart after Gradstein, 2010.

This presentation will look at well placement vertically in the pay, well azimuth and well trajectory with explanations of how geology and post-depositional effects can make the difference between a successful well and a failure.

This e-symposium will focus on how surface geochemical surveys and Downhole Geochemical Imaging technologies can be utilized jointly to directly characterize the composition of hydrocarbons vertically through the prospect section.

Projects in several shales will be discussed, including Marcellus, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Fayetteville, Montney, and Barnett, as will several seismically-detectable drivers for success including lithofacies, stress, pre-existing fractures, and pore pressure.

The presentation describes a well established fracture modeling workflow that uses a standard 3D seismic, conventional logs, image logs and data from one core to build predictive 3D fracture models that are validated with blind wells.